


Fire and Ice

by shipperx



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-17
Updated: 2010-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-13 17:54:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/140068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shipperx/pseuds/shipperx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-"Not Fade Away" with strong connections to the BtVS episode "Lie To Me"</p><p>As Christmas rolls around, Spike finds himself without plans... so he heads to Canada to atone for an old crime, confronts an ex, and faces down a dragon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. I

**I**

Leaning against the sofa cushions, Spike closed his eyes and propped his feet on the coffee table, resolved to ignore the Kenny G version of “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” that wafted through the teen homeless shelter. He also intended to ignore the fact that there was synthetic snow on the window sill despite it being a sunny, seventy degree day. How any of this evoked the feeling of _real_ Christmas, he could not imagine. There were no crackers, no goose, and no figgy pudding.

Then, for reasons unknown, he took a breath and smiled. Angel might mock him for breathing so often, but breathing had its benefits, and Spike took a moment to savor the spicy scent of gingerbread. Someone was baking, and some part of Spike’s brain zoomed across more than a hundred years, to his childhood when Christmas had held the hope of fresh snow, bells on sleighs and carriages, and fresh rather than plastic evergreens.

As a boy his favorite treat had been gingerbread. His mother had never made it because they had a cook for that, but she had allowed him to buy it for a penny at winter fairs. He'd held the confection in his mitten-covered hands and had delighted in the flavor of ginger, clove, and honey as he'd walked between his parents secure in the knowledge that he was loved.

His reverie was broken by Angel bursting into the room with Gunn yapping at his heels.

“Come on,” Gunn said. “A little turkey, some stuffing. It’s not a big deal.”

Angel glowered.

Gunn said, “Anne’s even willing to buy otter blood.”

Opening one eye, Spike asked, “Will there be congealed little clumpy bits?”

Gunn shot him a look of disgust.

“What?” Spike asked. “Can’t look worse than cranberry sauce. It would be festive.”

Angel growled. “Shut up, Spike.”

Spike gave his best I’m-an-asshole grin, then closed his eyes to continue basking in the smell of baked goods.

Angel said to Gunn, “I’m not stopping you and Anne…” After a pause he added, “And _whoever_ from celebrating Christmas. I’m just saying that I won’t be part of it.”

“Bah-humbug,” Spike said.

Gunn sighed. “Angel, you’re missing the point. Anne wants you to be part of it. When you were the head of Wolfram and Hart, you funded this place.”

If Charlie had hoped to push Angel into the holiday spirit with that remark, he had just made a serious misstep. Spike didn't need to look to know that Angel was even more glum than before. It was only to be expected. Angel had been this way ever since that night in the alley, and who could blame him? Defeat was a hard thing to swallow, and the battle with Wolfram and Hart had been a resounding defeat.

Spike remembered the electric tension running through him as he had stood ready for battle and determined that the battle would be epic. However, if there was one thing Spike knew, it was to never become so set in your expectations that you couldn’t adjust if things went in an entirely different direction.

Things almost always went in an entirely different direction.

The four of them had stood ready for Armageddon, facing demons, monsters, and a giant (or had it been a troll?) only for the _Army of Darkness_ to part, making room for the entrance of one tall, curvaceous woman.

“Lilah.” Angel had looked unhappy at the sound of his own voice as he had said her name. She, on the other hand, had smiled with a cold expression that had reminded Spike of Darla.

Lilah had said that Angel and Gunn, being paid employees of Wolfram and Hart, were to be placed on indefinite leave with the ‘full termination of their contracts’ to be executed at the Senior Partners’ discretion. She had also said that the _Circle of the Black Thorn_ had been replaced, and that the president of the Japanese branch of Wolfram and Hart was relocating to L.A., effective immediately.

While she was talking, Charlie had stumbled and fallen to the ground, his blood mixing with the rain that had sluiced over their bodies, and Spike had been left in the singularly odd position of being the only one to notice.

Spike was good at being the right hand man in a doomed battle. He liked fights. He even liked near-impossible odds. But it had always been the likes of Tara or Willow… or Dawn and Xander, or Fred, or even Buffy who had kept a watchful eye for human pain and mortal danger. Only none of them were in that alley. There had been only been demons: Blue--and her wish to do more violence--Angel, and himself. And Angel, having provoked this fight, had been unable to see a life beyond it. Spike had elbowed Angel, nudging him into noticing that he had a fallen soldier bleeding his life out on the ground.

Angel wouldn’t have left that alley if had been him alone, but an obligation to Charlie had done what no words could. For duty and obligation, Angel would accept defeat. And it had been defeat. It had been humiliating, and it had been futile. Nothing had been accomplished. Nothing had changed… nothing except that good people were dead.

It must be a hard thing to be a leader and to watch your lieutenants die. Angel had lost Cordelia, sweet little Fred, and the Watcher. And Spike didn’t want to ask questions about Drogyn. He suspected that he knew what had happened. Dark cults like the Circle had nasty initiation rites, and Angel had gone through all of them. He’d trod through blood and death with an eye towards… something.

Spike had never been certain what the exact goal had been. Atonement? Saving the world? Whatever it was, Spike figured that Angel had thought it noble, but it must have been a mirage. There was nothing there. It had been sound and fury, signifying… not very much.

They had taken Gunn to the hospital where the doctors had pronounced him ‘not quite dead,’ but it had been close. And two vampires and a million year old demon had been ill equipped to deal with the red tape involved in the American medical system. Luckily Gunn had regained consciousness long enough to suggest that Angel call Anne before lapsing into a medically induced coma.

Gunn’s ‘Anne’ turned out to be a cute bit of blonde fluff who had hated Spike on first sight. Acutally, that wasn’t entirely true. It had been second sight or possibly third, only Spike hadn’t discovered that fact until later.

When she had arrived at the hospital, on the day when Gunn had regained consciousness, she had greeted Angel warmly and had placed a light kiss on Charlie’s forehead. “You had to play big-time hero.”

Gunn had smiled weakly. “And now I need you to be mine.” He had explained that they could use her help, and she had wanted to know who ‘we’ entailed.

Angel had introduced Blue, who had morphed out of her disguise as the guileless Fred.

Anne had paled and had looked uncertain as she greeted Illyria cautiously. But when she had turned to face Spike, her gaze had turned cold. She had backed away and had reached for the crucifix that hung around her neck.

Gunn had rushed to explain about vampires and souls, but she wasn’t buying that explanation… for anyone but Angel.

Typical.

Spike had seen it before. With Angel there was always the conviction that there were two of him. There was Angelus and the enormous poof, and the two never mixed. They might share some similarities in appearance – and a poor taste in haircuts – but they were two separate creatures. With Spike there was only Spike – which didn’t bother Spike much because as far as he could tell there _was_ only one him. However, he’d never ceased to marvel that Angel somehow convinced people that the two parts of himself had nothing to do with one another.

Spike would laugh about it if it didn’t piss him off quite so much.

Anne’s response to Gunn’s explanation that Spike wasn’t the enemy was to keep her distance. She ignored Spike whenever he came around.

After Charlie had been released from the hospital, he’d taken the time to explain to Spike that if Anne seemed nervous or angry, it was because that she had met Spike in the bad old days. She had been part of a group of Goth teens who had read too much Anne Rice and had listened to too much Evanescence – or whatever it was that kids had listened to in those days. The group had been headed by Buffy’s friend Chevy…

Wait. No. That wasn’t it. But for the life of him, Spike couldn’t think of what it was. Just that the boy’s name had involved a car. Maybe.

Buffy’s friend with the automotive name had wanted to strike a bargain, some overwrought request for ‘eternal life.’ And Buffy had held Drusilla hostage, forcing Spike to release Anne and her friends. But Spike had honored his bargain with the teen. He’d turned the boy, realizing that the git had never thought about the fact that Buffy would know and would meet his newly resurrected ass with the pointy end of a stake.

Spike and Dru had had a good laugh about that one.

Anyway, Anne held a grudge for all that history, and Spike couldn’t blame her, even though her unrelenting distrust had become a source of irritation... which in turn had become Angel’s only source of amusement in the last six months.

After Gunn had hooked up with Anne, an unvoiced truce had been formed between Anne and Spike. Charlie said that his close call with death had redirected his priorities. He was going to steer his ‘helping the helpless’ philosophy into less dangerous territory by using his demonically enhanced brain instead of his mortal body. He became a pro-bono lawyer, defending and working for Anne’s runaways. And, having found himself kicked out of the _Wolfram and Hart_ penthouse, Angel had accepted the offer of a room above Anne’s shelter.

Spike, however, was unwelcome.

Anne hadn’t chased him away with a cross and stake, but she had been visibly pleased to hear that he had a place of his own (fortunately, Lindsey had paid Spike’s six-month lease in advance.)

Things had remained in this relatively peaceful after that, at least until the holidays had begun making people crazy. Now Charlie followed Angel down the hallway begging.

“Come on, man,” Gunn said. “It’s Christmas.”

“Vampires don’t ‘do’ Christmas.” Angel closed the door in Charlie’s face.

Gunn sighed, and Spike couldn’t stop himself. He said, “Could’ve told you you were beating your head against a wall.”

Gunn shook his head. “It’s been almost seven months. I thought…”

“What?” Spike asked. “That he’d get over it?”

”No. Not that. Just…”

“Brood less?”

“Yeah. Was I crazy?”

Spike snorted. “Cheer up, Charlie-boy. Even Angel can’t brood forever.” Though if Spike had to bet, he'd lay money on it lasting five to ten years.

Gunn perked up. “Hey, I might have struck out with one of the soul brothers, but that doesn’t mean I can’t hit a homerun with the other.”

Spike eyed him with suspicion. “I don’t deck halls or play Santa.”

“Nah. I’d never ask that.” He ducked his head. “That’s not the gift that Anne wants.”

Spike tensed. “What does she want?”

“Other than me keeping an eye on those gingerbread house cut-outs that she has in the oven?” Gunn sank into the battered chair standing opposite the sofa where Spike had made himself comfortable. “The truth is, she’d like you to make yourself scarce, not hang around much.” Charlie leaned forward. “I’m not talking about forever. Just for the holidays.”

Spike remained carefully still and stopped breathing the scent of gingerbread. “Right,” he said. He stood and grabbed his coat off the back of the sofa. “No problem. “

Gunn looked concerned. “It doesn’t have to be right this second. I don’t—“

Spike held up his hand. “Don’t apologize. She’s your girl. I know what it’s like. A guy does what he can for his girl. “ He’d die for her. Or fight for his soul and die all over again.

Spike knew all about the lengths a man would go to for love.

With more determination than he’d felt for anything in a very long time, Spike ignored the hard knot forming in the center of his chest and said, “Besides, vampires don’t ‘do’ Christmas.”

He closed the metal door behind him as left the shelter, realizing too late that it was still the middle of the afternoon and that he’d trapped himself in the shadowed back alley because sunlight prevented him from reaching the manhole sewer access located near the loading dock.

“Bugger.” He leaned against the brick wall and searched his pockets for a pack of nicotine gum.

He’d thought about taking up smoking again, but had decided against it. He hadn't wanted to incur more of Anne’s wrath.

But he guessed that didn’t matter now. It didn’t look like keeping the peace posed a problem any more, which left him with time to ponder other concerns that he had, the most pressing of which being the need to find a place to live. Lindsey’s pre-paid lease was running out, and, before today’s turn of events, Spike had considered asking if he could also bunk in the shelter. He’d even been willing to bunk with Angel if he had to.

Now, he had to think of something else. And after that came the existential question of what to do with the rest of his existence.

The question had bugged him more and more lately, though never in a truly existential way. He was more pragmatic than that. What he’d really wondered was what in the hell was he supposed to _do_.

He wasn’t like Angel. He couldn’t perpetually mourn what had been lost or spend lifetimes dissecting his regrets. Angel had raised brooding to an artform, but it would only drive Spike mad. He couldn’t sit still. He couldn’t handle examining and re-examining things that he could not change. He needed something to _do_.

But do what exactly?

As William he had pursued love straight to his own death. When he had become Spike, he had focused on the twin goals of retaining Dru’s affection and seeking the head of the Slayer. Later, he had concerned himself with other parts of the Slayer and that had turned into what? A desire for redemption? A need to earn Buffy’s respect? More recently, he’d even found himself taking Angel’s causes as his own. But all goals felt like quicksilver to Spike. He could reach for them, but he could never hold them in his hand.

Now, he had to face the fact that if Angel had lost direction, then he had no direction of his own. He could hunt demons – God knows he couldn’t sit still – but was that it? Was that all there was? The hunt for the sake of the hunt alone?

“I told you not to involve me in this,” Anne hissed as she pushed a gangly young man out of the shelter’s loading dock door.

Spike stepped back, not exactly hiding behind a dumpster, but not drawing attention to himself.

The man with Anne looked squirrely in a way that Spike hadn’t seen since Andrew.

The guy said, “Chanterelle, you’ve got to understand.”

“No, I don’t. And my name is Anne. You know that.”

There was an almost dreamy expression on the guy’s face. “We took different names, once. We had dreams.”

“Delusions.” She sounded exasperated. “For God’s sake, I named myself after a _mushroom_ because I thought it sounded pretty.”

The man looked hurt. “It was pretty. It _is_ pretty. You have to see things through different eyes.”

“Is that what you’re telling the kids in my shelter?" There was a hint of strain in her voice. "Are you recruiting them? God, Marvin, did you learn nothing from what happened last time? Playing with the occult is dangerous.”

“Diego. I officially changed my name. It’s Diego, now.” He said it so childishly that Spike expected him to stomp his foot and throw a tantrum.

Anne sighed. “Names don’t make a difference. You’re still the same person, and it’s games like this that almost got us killed.”

“I’m not talking about a game. I’m talking about a sacred ritual. ‘ _The Long Night_.’ It’s the pagan the festival of the _Winter Solstice_ , when vampyres gather to celebrate their community.”

 _Sweet bloody Christ,_ Spike thought.

Marvin kept talking nonsense. “It’s the night to welcome new members to the coven of the children of the night. It’s a sacred rite of passage.”

It was bollocks.

Anne said, “You’re going to get yourself killed. Can’t you see that?”

Marvin said, “They turned Ford. They can turn me.”

“Into what?” she asked, sounding genuinely distressed. Some part of her must still care about the guy.

Marvin stepped away, looking unhappy. “You won’t go with me?”

“No.” She stood her ground. “I won’t go with you, and I don’t want you filling my kids' heads with this… this _crap_.” She stepped back inside the shelter. “Don’t come here again.”

She closed the door and squirrelly guy walked out of the alley. In the shadows behind the dumpster, Spike squared his shoulders, knowing that he’d found something to do. He intended to make this year’s “ _Long Night_ ” one that people would never forget…


	2. II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike runs into his ex.

**II**

Beyond the salted stone patio, snow stood in drifts so deep that Spike gazed at them in surprise. It might be Christmas in Canada, but he had been to Canada in December before, and it had never been like this. Of course, the last time he had been here, it had been 1910.

In the nineteenth century, the Banff Springs Hotel had been built by the Canadian Pacific Railroad to cater to rich Europeans who kidded themselves that they experienced the ‘wilderness’ when they left the Continent by luxury liner and crossed the Rockies in equally luxurious trains. Sleeping cars with crisp white linens and five-star hotels had provided a lavish hunting ground for vampires. No one knew or cared if tourists went missing, and Darla had loved the first class accommodations.

When Darla, Dru, and he had arrived at Banff, Darla had her pick of rooms with breathtaking views, and Dru had wanted to strip naked to wade into the sulfurous hot springs to commune with wood sprites. Spike hadn’t known whether there actually were wood sprites, but if there was a place to find them, the steaming pools beneath snow-laden evergreens seemed like the right place.

Dru had pronounced it perfect for the celebration of the solstice. The _Long Night_ had been planned here before.

“Ice with fire,” she’d said. “The line between light and—“ She’d gestured towards the water that must have been heated by some subterranean volcanic source. “—and world’s end.”

She’d looked up at him as he stood on the cliff above the pools, and with a sly, flirtatious smile, she’d stood. Steam had risen from her slender white body and her nipples puckered in the cold as she climbed naked up the rocks to where Spike stood.

She had pressed her palm against his cheek. “Poor lost lamb,” she’d said.

He’d lightly nipped her neck. “No lamb here, love.” As he pulled her close, her wet body still warm from the spring though her hands and legs were blue from the cold climb up the rocks.

Dru had giggled, a mad almost unearthly sound. “You wish to be a dragon slayer.” Then she’d pulled back, looking startled. And with the swift change in mood that only Dru could master, a note of warning replaced her previously dream-filled tone. “Be careful that the dragon doesn’t slay you.”

There had been no dragon, of course—not the night of the solstice or the night after that. There had only been a motley collection of drunk and stupid vampires that had arrived along with some demons who had been in the mood to celebrate the _Long Night_.

Darla had complained bitterly about the execrable state of the affair. She’d ranted about the ‘proper’ rituals that she’d attended when she’d served The Master and had been part of the true _Order of Aurelius._

Spike had mocked Darla and told her to run home to Daddy if she was so upset. This had set Drusilla to crying and whimpering that _her_ daddy had left them. No one could hurt her properly except Angelus.

As vacations went, Spike remembered that trip to Banff as being only slightly more pleasant than hell.

Now Spike stood on the same hotel’s patio, gazing at the same the valley still filled with conifers and a winding, ice-edged river that ran beneath a low-hanging moon and star-studded sky. He wondered whether he’d initially given the place a proper chance, because Darla had been right, the view was magnificent.

He kicked his boot against the low stone wall, knocking the snow off his Docs and noting that the entire place was stone now. In the old days it had been wood and plaster, but before they had left, Dru had set fire to the hotel.

Flames had licked the sky during a white-out blizzard and Dru had danced naked in the snow. As they had watched it burn, Darla had clapped her hands and pronounced the conflagration, “Quite grand.” It was the most fun they had on the entire trip. Since that time, the hotel had been rebuilt from the ground up and re-designed to resemble a Scottish baronial castle.

“Oh my god,” a familiar voice said. “You.”

Spike turned to see a pretty, buxom blonde standing in the doorway, dressed in a white fur-lined pink parka and tight-as-a-second-skin ski pants.

He groaned. “Harm.”

Harmony preened a gave a flirty smile before she remembered that she was angry with him.

Her glossy pink lips tightened to a thin line. “Did you follow me?”

“What? No.” Spike walked passed her, straight into the hotel bar.

“It’s too late,” she told him, toddling after him in her plastic ski boots. “I’ve found someone new. Dirk—“

Spike stopped. “Dirk?” He didn’t bother to hide his amusement. “Seriously?”

“What’s funny? He’s very handsome.” She glared at him. “More handsome than you.”

Spike snorted and ordered a single-malt whiskey. Straight-up. No ice.

Harm continued to prattle. “You can go home right now. I’m not coming back to you. No matter how much you grovel or beg or plead.” She crossed her arms across her chest in a way that she knew lifted and accentuated her cleavage. “Go ahead. Give it your best shot. But I’m warning you, I won’t give in.”

Spike laughed. “You forget that the last time I saw you, you betrayed the lot of us and left us for dead?”

She gasped. “I so totally did _not_!”

“’Course you did.”

“I didn’t betray anyone. You guys were mean to me.”

“Right.” He knocked back his drink in a single gulp, enjoying the heat as it warmed his throat. “And I’m warning you. If you’re off otter blood these days, I’ll be meaner still.”

Her eyes widened. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“It’s the rules. I’d have to kill you.”

She sputtered and backed away with her ski boots clomping against the floor as a young male vampire came over and draped his arm over her shoulder. “Hey, babe, aren’t you gonna introduce me?”

Finding her courage and indignation again, Harm sniffed, did a hair toss, and cuddled against to her mop-headed vamp who was outfitted, head to tow, in black snow boarding gear.

“This is my ex,” she told Dirk as she casually waved her hand in Spike’s direction. “The one I was telling you about. Blondie-B…er… Spike.”

“Dude!” Dirk said while bobbing his head. “I’ve heard about you. You’re like really old, right?”

Spike frowned. “Not that old.”

“I heard you were a total bad-ass.”

“No,” Harm protested. “No, he’s not. He’s a… a…”

“Bad, rude man,” Spike supplied.

“Yeah, and he –“

Spike cut her off. “Is rather curious why the two of you are dressed in ski gear.”

“Dude, snowboarding is like totally my life. Or, you know, _unlife_.”

Spike rolled his eyes.

Dirk sat on a barstool. “It would’ve been a major bummer if I had to give up the powder after I ‘fanged-out.’ “ He even used air quotes.

 _Good lord,_ Spike thought. _Harm found someone as vapid as herself._

Dirk caressed his black and red snowboard like it was the curve of Harm’s breast. “Then I remembered that Keystone had night skiing. Oh, and then I found out I had super, awesome night vision and could ski anywhere.” He pulled Harm up against him, he nuzzled her hair. “Now, we’re hitting all the resorts.”

Harm skimmed her hand down Dirk’s thigh while gazing defiantly at Spike. “We had a great time in Aspen. Dirk killed a celebrity just to get me a mink.”

“Anything for you, babe.”

“And,” she said. “I met Paris Hilton.”

Spike signaled the bartender to refill his drink. “So what are you snowbunnies doing here? This old rock hasn’t been a hot spot for the nobs since World War II.”

Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum then explained that they had arrived for the “bitchin’ party” planned for the _Long Night_. It was being held at the glacial Lake Louise, and there would be bonfires, blood sacrifices, and – if there was time – maybe ice climbing.

It wasn’t the exact same location as the bacchanal that he’d attended in 1910, but the itinerary sounded like it was the same, except for the ice climbing.

Without asking too many questions, Dirk and Harm allowed Spike to tag along. (Thankfully, Harm had the short-term memory of a fruit-bat and had forgotten – or had never taken seriously – his threat to kill her.)

When they arrived at the lake, Spike spared a thought for the way that Dru would have wanted to bask in the reflected moonlight while admiring the way the rocky peaks plunged into the snow-covered ice sheet. Spike also thought of Buffy, and wished that he could have brought her here, to see the majestic view… and the majestic ass-kicking soon to come.

Spike navigated his way down the hill as he decided that other than the North Face jackets and assorted ski paraphernalia the vampires at this _Long Night_ were no different from the ones in 1910. They were still mostly drunk and stupid. And the ‘vampyres,’ the humans like Marvin who romanticized the ‘creatures of the night’ schtick, were even more drunk and/or stupid if they thought they had a greater than being the midnight buffet.

Spike saw Anne’s friend, Marvin-Diego, with a girl who looked somewhat familiar. Spike thought he may have seen her in Anne’s shelter, so it seemed that Anne had been right. Marvin had been recruiting and had talked one (and now he counted two) of Anne’s kids into his suicidal quest.

“Bugger.”

He’d have to do something about that. But when he moved to intervene, someone stepped in his way, blocking his view of the runaways.

Anne said, “I knew you hadn’t changed. I knew you couldn’t be trusted.” But then she paled as a new thought struck her. “Unless… Did Angel send you to save my kids? If he did, I’m totally embarrassed and sorry I accused you--”

“Angel didn’t send me.” But before a new storm of insults had time to roll off her tongue, Spike said, “Which doesn’t mean I’m the rotter you think I am. I’m not the villain here.”

“You’re trying to help?”

“I’m considering it.”

Anne digested this information as Spike pulled her out of the circle of light cast by the bonfire fire burning at the edge of the lake.

“Now,” he said. “You tell me. What are _you_ doing here? And don’t tell me you’re alone, ‘cause that would be incredibly stupid.”

She brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “I didn’t think it would go this far. Or that I would go this far. “ She looked over her shoulder where Marvin and her kids warmed their hands by the fire. “Marvin isn’t really dangerous. He’s just –“

“A moron.”

“He’s trying to find himself. It’s stupid, I know, but he’s desperate and I thought…”

“That you could catch him before he fell into this pit of vipers?”

When she had been young and going by the name “Chanterelle” Spike had thought that she looked soft, but tonight in the moonlight she looked as though she had been cast out of blue steel. “He brought two of my kids here. He’s a grown man and can destroy his own life, but not my kids. ”

Spike considered her for a moment, this wisp of a woman who had a hell of a way of standing her ground.

“Right, then.” He nodded. “I’m here to help.”

Dirk came out of nowhere and slapped Spike on the back. “Dude! You gotta get a move on. They’re about to light the Yule log.”

Harm sniffed. “A blonde. I should have known.” She shot Anne a look of contempt. “If he asks you to carry a stake and to call you ‘Buffy’ during sex, just say no.” As she flounced away with Dirk, she glanced back over her shoulder and stuck her tongue out at Spike.

Spike pushed his hands deeper into his duster’s pockets. “It wasn’t like it sounded.”

“It wasn’t?” Anne looked doubtful.

“Actually, it was. But I’d feel like less of a prat if we pretended the subject never came up.”

She nodded and looked toward the bonfire. “So the Yule log…?” When Spike didn’t say anything she asked, “What’s a Yule log doing in some vampire ritual? It isn’t a bit too cheery and Christmas-like? Or is this some kind of deliberate sacrilege?”

Thankfully, Dru, in her strangely lyrical way, had once answered the same question for Spike.

“The Yule log is pagan,” he said. “It has something to do with winter and living forever.” He shrugged. “Don’t know the details.”

Marvin-Diego stood in the yellow-red light cast by the fire, holding the log in his hands with the help of an equally stupid boy. Marvin announced in theatrically stentorian tones, “We, the children of the night, the _vampyres_ , make this offering to the ‘ _gens Aurelia_.’ ”

The flames gave Marvin an almost demonic look as he and the boy swung the log, tossing it into the fire, causing a shower of sparks to rise into the air. “We beg for a blessing, the rite of passage. We wish to become part of the battle between dark and light.”

The memories of the death, blood, and screams that had followed this invocation on the _Long Night_ of 1910, drove Spike forward. Time had run out. Anne’s kids were in danger _now_.

The vampires at the party morphed in to gameface, and the willing human sacrifices took on the look of deer mesmerized by headlights.

Spike put his hand to Anne’s back. “Run!” Spike said.

Anne refused. “No.”

Spike twisted his face into a monstrous mask. “I said run.”

“Not without my kids!”

Grabbing Anne’s hand, Spike dove into the melee with his coat billowing behind them. Sensing danger, he stiff-armed one vamp as it charged him and then backhanded another, flinging it into the bonfire where it flew face first into the kindling and burst into a spray of dust, which crackled, sparked, and caught fire like New Year’s fireworks.

Screams echoed across the ice, and Spike saw Marvin-Diego struggling as Dirk wrapped his arm around him and began biting his neck.

“There!” Anne pointed to her horrified teens who had backed away from the fire and had moved onto the lake ice.

Grabbing his mop of hair, Spike pulled Dirk off of Marvin then shoved the ski-crazy vampire to the ground as he moved to rescue Anne’s kids from another vampire who had skidded out onto the ice. When Spike reached the young girl, intending to rescue her she looked into his face and screamed.

“Bloody hell.” Spike relaxed, returning to his normal face. “I’m—“

Anne caught and hugged the teen. “We’re here to help.”

Spike noticed Dirk climbing to his feet, his gameface dominated by a yellow-eyed glare of humiliated rage, which gave away his intent for head-on charge of revenge.

Spike dusted the vamp that had menaced Anne’s teens then turned on his heel and dusted Dirk in a single fluid motion when Dirk moved to leap onto Spike’s back.

Harmony yelled as the earth split wide open.

At least it felt and sounded as though the earth had split open. The lake ice cracked, jagged streaks snaked across the lake, opening fissures and marring the pristine blanket of snow. Then, everything exploded upward. A geyser of water propelled giant slabs of foot-thick ice twenty yards into the air as a primordial roar shattered the background hush of the endless expanse of unpopulated mountains.

Spike and Anne grabbed the teens and ducked and covered as a spray of ice and snow crystals fell back to earth.

“What is it?” Anne asked in a horrified whisper.

Spike wanted to say that he didn’t know, that he hadn’t seen what had shot up with the geyser. But he had seen, and he did know.

It was a dragon.

“You’ll do it this time,” Spike said. “You’ll run when I say run.”

She was already glancing toward the lake’s shoreline. “You won’t need to say it.”

“Run!”

Spike dragged one teen to her feet as Anne shepherded the other. They skidded across the ice until they hit the bank of snow at the waters edge then charged toward the cover of the trees.

There was the sound – and feel – of a rush of wind caused by the flapping of giant bat-like wings, as the dragon’s roar became an ear-piercing scream. The ear-splitting sound almost debilitated humans but drove most of the vampires to their knees.

Spike pushed the kids. “Go. Go.” They weren’t far from the treeline and their best bet was to hide.

“Marvin!” Anne said.

Spike looked at her in disbelief. “You're kidding me.”

“We can’t just leave him.”

Spike looked back at the disaster behind them. He caught a glimpse of Harm’s pink parka disappearing over the crest of the hill. And he saw Marvin on his back, his hands and feet failing to gain purchase on the so that he could stand and run. The idiot looked rightfully terrified.

“Right,” he said, hating that he was saying it. “I’ll go.”

The dragon landed on the bank of the lake with a thud that literally shook the ground, its talons providing sure footing in the snow as it circled the debilitated vampires who lay curled in a fetal position, clutching their ears. The creature roared – again – and as Spike doubled-over he could swear that his own ears began to bleed.

He touched his cheek and felt the stickiness of blood. “Shit.”

And he noticed that the sound of his own voice seemed muffled. Had the dragon’s roar burst his eardrums?

As Marvin crawled on his hands and knees on the ice, the dragon whipped its tail, driving the barbed end of it into the ground, blocking the man’s path of escape. The creature gave a smoking snort that caused ice to begin to melt, creating puddles then steam, and Marvin’s sniveling whimper became blubbering tears.

The dragon nudged the man, like a cat with a half-dead mouse that it wasn’t through playing with. It turned Marvin over, forcing him to stare into the face of certain death. Then it swiveled its horned head to examine the carnage on the lake’s bank before filling its lungs with clean mountain air, opening its massive jaws to spit a jet of flame that incinerated all of the incapacitated vampires on the spot.

While the creature was occupied, Spike dashed around the dragon’s tail to grab the mewling Marvin-Diego. He jerked at the man’s jacket, but Marvin shook his head and refused to move. He was immobilized by fear.

“Sonofabitch,” Spike muttered, causing the dragon’s ears to perk up.

The scales along the dragon’s spine rose like the hairs of a hissing cat, and it roared again. Spike refused to bend or fall to his knees no matter how much pain he was in, but he felt more blood trickle down his jaw and neck.

The dragon examined Spike. It sniffed him, and, for a moment, Spike wondered whether it was about to lick him or – like Illyria – decide to make him its pet. But the creature’s glacial-blue gaze narrowed and attacked. It happened so swiftly that Spike never had a chance to fight back.

“Spike!” Anne screamed, as the dragon wrapped its vice-like talons around Spike’s waist.

And, flapping its enormous wings, it tore upward through the night sky then plunged into the ice-covered lake…


	3. III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike confronts the dragon.

III

Icy water felt like knives slicing his skin. As the dragon dove deeper, Spike tried to pull away, but the creature gripped its talons tighter, nearly breaking his ribs.

Spike stopped struggling. Even if he freed himself, he didn’t think he knew which way was up. Damned busted eardrums had buggered his equilibrium, and, in the total absence of light, even he couldn’t see.

There was an explosion of heat around him, and with it came a red-gold glow. And, if his brain function had slowed because of frigid temperatures, it began racing when he realized that the dragon was breathing fire into the water.

Liquid boiled around him, and Spike again struggled to break free only to find himself face to face with the dragon. He stared into its gray-green eyes as a knot primal fear twisted in his stomach. He was beginning to suspect that this wasn’t a simple beast.

He thought it watched him and read him.

It definitely unnerved the hell out of him.

They sank deeper into the lake, and the cold felt like someone driving ice picks into his skull. Spike clenched his jaw against the pain and closed his eyes as an invisible ten-ton weight settled on top of his chest. If he were human, it would have felt like he was running out of air, and some vestigial biological instinct told him to open his mouth and breathe.

Vampires don’t drown, he told himself. It was absurd. But it was happening – again. Just as with the First, he sucked water into his mouth and lungs.

He choked and gagged. Vampires might not need air, but like humans, they sure as hell could not breathe water.

His body protested, and he convulsed in the dragon’s grip. The fire, the ice, and the ear-piercing pain and the chest-crushing pressure coalesced into something so overwhelming, that, even as he fought against it, Spike lost consciousness.

 

***

 

His body hit stone, and the impact forced almost a gallon of water out of his lungs.

Spike groaned. When he lifted his head, the entire world swayed, going slightly off-kilter, courtesy of supernaturally healing but not-quite-finished-yet ruptured eardrums. He pulled himself to his hands and knees and waited for the world to stop spinning.

He was in a cave. It was quite wide with a low arched ceiling littered with stalactites (or were they stalagmites? He could never remember the difference). A campfire surrounded by a ring of river stone burned at one side of the cave, and behind him stood a wall of ice formed of countless threads of water - some thick, some thin.

"A waterfall trapped in a moment of time," a familiar voice said… an unforgettable voice. Unforgettable, and shamefully dear.

"Dru," he whispered.

Slender as ever and dressed in diaphanous silver lace that clung to her breasts and thighs, Drusilla emerged from the shadows.

Tilting her head slightly, she said, "Not what you should be. What are you?"

Spike rubbed his hands over his face and thought of all the moments that had brought him here. There had been the truce with Buffy over Acathla that Dru had never forgiven. There had been the Initiative and their experiments. There had been Dawn and Glory, and a promise. There had been Buffy, dead at his feet and seeking life in his arms. And there had been a mistake that had driven him halfway around the world followed by a quest that had driven him insane. He had found death and resurrection - if it could be called that – and the prospect of death again. None of it made sense to him, so how could he possibly make sense of it for her?

At a loss, he could think of nothing better to say than the truth. "I have a soul."

Her gray-green eyes glittered with amusement. "I know _that_."

Wait. Dru's eyes weren't gray-green.

With a sick sense of dread, Spike tensed for a fight. "You're not Dru."

"No," she said. “Not Dru.” And the dark-haired woman who stood in front of him became Fred.

He circled her, his heart aching for the sweet girl who had died painfully and two young.

“The First, then, “ he said. “Knew routing you was too easy. Not gonna get your claws into me again."

“Not the First either." Fred walked across the room, sat by the fire.

Spike approached her warily. "If you're not the First, what are you?"

In the guise of Dawn, she rolled her eyes. "That should be obvious."

"You're the dragon."

"Duh," said the face it most pained him to see - Buffy.

"So how are you—" He bit off the question. " _Why_ are you…"

"All the girls you've loved before?"

Dazed, he said, “I didn’t love Dawn or Fred like that.”

“Like what?” Buffy asked as she rose to her knees and laid her palm against his abdomen. His stomach clenched, and his emotions skittered in a thousand different directions as she slowly moved her hand over his waistband. “Because you didn't have sex?” She unbuttoned his jeans.

He grabbed her hands, pulling her away from his zipper. “I don’t do the love slave bit any more.”

Buffy smiled, and then she stood to kiss him lightly, sweetly on the lips. Warmth spread through him.

“Love takes many forms,” she whispered and touched his face before her small figure grew larger and brawnier. She became Angel.

“Bloody hell.” Spike stumbled backward. “Stop that! Be someone else.”

“Someone I didn’t steal from your memory?” She (He? Did dragons even have a gender?) stood her ground. “I know I’m freaking you out, but I have a point. I found these loves in you.”

Angel faded away, leaving behind a slender, dark-haired girl with iridescent skin and a pair of dragon's wings. Spike wondered whether she was made of ice, but in the deep v of her silvery décolletage, he saw a flush of pink that spread upward and outward. He realized that her skin wasn't just iridescent. It was translucent. Inside her beat a heart of fire.

“Do you know what evil is?” she asked.

“I’m a vampire, remember? Got a clue.”

"Evil isn’t blood," she said. "It's not even death. It's the absence of light – no love, no faith, no charity.” She spread her wings, which were iridescent too. “The Old Ones were entirely of the dark. We tried to drive them away. We thought we had. Once.”

Spike remembered the story. The last Old One out the door had created vampires.

“No victory is complete,” the dragon said. “And, it turns out, no defeat is either. Every Winter Solstice we reach the tipping point—towards the light or away from it.” She seemed somewhat peeved. “The Dark Ones always push it, always try to skew things in their favor. They want to control the world again, but the dragons fight back. We bring chaos. Unbridled life. We bring the hope of spring."

"And just in time for Christmas, too," he mocked.

The fire inside her went from orange-gold to deep red. “We give light a chance.”

"I get it." Spike kicked a stalagmite with the toe of his boot. "You're the fiery, winged Persephone."

She looked offended. "That's an entirely different legend."

Spike shoved his hands into his pockets and began to pace. "If you're here for the ` _Long Night_ ,' why have you never been here before?"

"There aren't many dragons left. Almost none at all, and there are more battles in the world than the one in this time and place. We can’t win all of them.”

“So what do I have to do with any of this?"

"You're a vampire, and you were out there—" She pointed to the wall of ice. "—saving humans, even ones who probably don't deserve it."

"So? Only means I'm a fool."

“You’re a bringer of light.”

Shocked, Spike shook his head. "Don't go thinkin' I'm a hero. I'm not _that_ vampire with a soul. I'm the other one. I don’t have a destiny."

The silvery web of her almost-clothing glistened in the light of the fire and in the light of…well… _her._

"There's no such thing as destiny," she said. "Things happen or they don't. Some plans work out and other times they’re shot to hell. That's life."

" `Course, you're the font of chaos."

She smiled mischievously and he noticed an elfin look about her. "True. But the fact remains that you have light in you." She laid her palm against his chest and his skin began to glow. Somewhere in the center of his being, heat built until white-gold light spilled out of him, reminding him of --

"Holy hell." He pulled away and pounded his chest until the light went away. Angrily, he said, "I burned in the Hellmouth ‘cause of a gaudy trinket. Not interested in doing it again just to be felt up by you."

She placed her hand on an icicle in the waterfall. “There may be prisms.” The light inside her fed into the ice, creating a rainbow. "But the source of light is you." Her expression became gentle, even compassionate. “How do you think I found all those people in your heart?”

When he didn’t react, she asked, “Are you going to force me to go Clarence on you?”

Frown lines creased Spike’s forehead. “What?”

“Clarence. The angel in _It’s a Wonderful Life_. “

“You got cable up here?”

“Where would I get cable?” she asked, then grinned. “I have a satellite dish.” She met him toe-to-toe. “The point is, George Bailey, you’re actually a big damn hero.”

“Name isn't George. And the line is ‘you actually had a wonderful life.’ ”

She shook her head. "I've had a peek at your life. It's mostly sucked."

She touched his jaw and forced him to look at her. "Light can burn out,” she told him. “It can dim. We can loose direction, become bitter about the fight, or become heartbroken about the love that we didn't have. Every time we lose faith or hope, the dark draws a little closer."

Spike shrugged. "Happens sometimes."

"The strong ones recover,” she said. “They fight back. And, let me tell you, we dragons may be a tenacious lot but we only roar. It takes individuals to drive the darkness away." She framed his face between her hands. "Whatever doubts you have about yourself, you're strong. You fight. You have an astounding capacity for love. Enough to change change yourself, or others, or even to change the world."

He laughed sadly, disbelievingly, and with just a bit of fear. "How can you possibly believe that?"

"Because you already have." She laid her hand against his chest again, and heat built within him, just like before. He could almost feel his heart beating as light flooded out of him and he stood in a fire that did not burn.

"It doesn't take a destiny to be special," she said as they became enveloped by the light. "It just takes the stubbornness to continue fighting, and the ability to love simply because you do.”

She kissed him again. Warm lips. Cool skin. Ice at his back, and fire raging everywhere else. "You _are_ a hero," she said.

There was an explosion of light, driving him through the wall of ice, shattering it.

Shot into the night air, he free-fell away from the cliff along with the shattered the ice waterfall that landed on top of him after he landed in deep snow.


	4. IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas

IV

Spike groaned and found himself pinned beneath the wreckage of the waterfall and the drift of snow, unable to pull himself free.

He looked up the face of the cliff, searching for the cave, but there was nothing there. No dragon or beautiful girl, just a wall of rock. He was stranded. Alone.

When he looked towards the sky, he noticed the first hints of lavender light that warned that dawn would be coming soon, and he wondered whether it was possible for a vampire to burst into flame while trapped in ice.

“There!” someone yelled.

Anne.

She said, “I thought I saw something."

Dressed in a heavy jacket and ski pants, she waded through the snow, and, to Spike's shock, she smiled when she reached him. “We’ve been looking for you.”

She began pulling the mountain of ice off of him, but there was no way that she could pull off enough to free him before the sun rose.

“Angel!” She yelled. “I found him.”

Seconds later, the brusque vampire with a grim expression emerged from the woods, followed by a blue-streaked Illyria and a grinning Gunn. A chastened-looking Marvin-Diego followed in their wake, still wearing his ridiculous cape.

“We’ll have you out in a minute,” Gunn said, patting Spike on the shoulder. “We’ve been looking for you for days.”

“You’re an idiot,” Angel said in a surly voice.

With one shove, Angel removed the bulk of the ice-mountain pinning Spike to the ground. He offered his hand, and, after a moment, Spike accepted it. Once on his feet, he and Angel stood toe to toe staring at each other.

“You’re fine.” Angel said. "No injuries." Then he turned and walked away.

“Guess so, “ Spike said. “More or less.”

The older vampire looked up at the sky. “We need to get out of this light.”

The six of them made a motley crew as they walked down the hill towards the hotel, entering the wood-paneled lobby before the Christmas morning sun burned brightly enough to incinerate two weary vampires.

Gunn explained that Anne had phoned them and had told them what had happened, causing them to fly to Canada. The five of them had searched for nearly three days, and they had almost given up hope. But Angel had said that Spike had survived two apocalypses in a single year. "He's too stubborn to die."

“And here you are,” Gunn said as he fell into the chair closest to the fireplace in the après-ski lounge.

Angel muttered something about a hot shower and wanting to change clothes whlie Illyria studied the Christmas tree that the hotel had placed in the lounge.

“The green,” she said. “They have cut it and trapped it inside. It screams.” She touched the shimmering ornaments that reflected the array of tiny colored lights. “I like it.”

Spike collapsed on the sofa facing the fire. He was dead tired and frozen to the bone, and he wanted to just sit here.

Anne, who had disappeared some time ago, came into the room carrying a gingerbread house. “Don’t ask me how I got it.”

She set it on the coffee table in front of Spike and Gunn and said, “It never feels like Christmas without one.”

With her hands folded in front of her, she explained that it was a tradition in her family to make a gingerbread house, and for the entire family to share it on Christmas morning.

She smiled at Spike. “You want to break off the first piece?”

He looked at her in surprise.

Gunn shot him a grin.

Angel grunted. “Do it already. I want a bath.”

Spike reached for the candy-coated construction of spice and flour, and, as he broke off a corner of the roof, he heard Anne say, “Thank you.”

~finis~


End file.
